Pompidou, Chinese New Year & Architecture in the 1st

Last Friday afternoon, some friends and I traveled over to Centre Pompidou to check out the Musee National D'Art Moderne (basically MOMA). Unfortunately the line was very long and I had to leave early to meet my landlord, but I plan on going back to see the rest! We saw an interesting combination of crazy WTF is this pieces (ex. a video of a lady hulahooping with barbed wire) and cool woah what is this pieces (see below).

Centre Pompidou

Then on Sunday my friends and I ventured to Chinatown in the 13th to celebrate the Chinese New Year and enjoy some Chinese food and see the parade. Unfortunately, a lot of other Parisians decided to do this as well (who woulda guessed?) so after waiting in a couple of lines and seating ourselves at a dirty table, we finally got some food, and finished in perfect time to check out the parade!

The remains of some very loud Chinese fireworks

Then yesterday in my architecture class we studied a bunch of buildings in the 1st. First we observed the courtyard in the Louvre, (while stopping to check out Saint Germain L'Auxerrois and Bourse de Commerce on the way) and then we headed over to Saint Eustache. Sainte Eustache is a beautiful church, and if it wasn't for my architecture class I would have left it at that. However, it mashes up two very prominent and somewhat dueling styles of Paris; Gothic and Renaissance. I, personally, did not mind this and thought it looked amazing, but apparently at its time the architecture world looked down on it greatly. However, that didn't stop non-architects from enjoying it, like Moliere and Madame De Pompadour who were baptized there, or Louis XIV who received his first communion there, or Mozart who chose St. Eustache as the location of his mother's funeral. Afterwards, we headed over to the Fontaine Des Innocents. 

Saint Germain L'Auxerrois, church next to the Louvre (Catherine de Medici moved out of the Tuleries, her widow's palace next to the Louvre, because her astrologist told her she would die next to Saint Germain. Ironically, though, when Catherine died in the Loire Valley, the priest that gave her the last sacraments name was Julien de Saint Germain!)

Bourse de Commerce (More crazy superstitious Catherine de Medici: While her Tuleries palace was under construction, her  astrologist convinced her to abandon the first location and instead move it here, all that remains from the original palace is this: her astrologer's observatory) 

St Eustache

St Eustache + Henri Miller's "The Listener"

Fontaine Des Innocents (No water 'till spring)

So, all in all, another good week! Working on my French, getting free pizza, the usual!